Closed for Cleaning

Suzi Mezei

Outside the women's toilets
a bucket waits
quarter-full with black water
and comatose mop-head,
a handle leant petulant
on cold tiles,
the truant cleaner,
ears plugged,
wired to the third race
at Flemington,
mind far from the wash,
lips wrapped `round the warmth
of his fag,
hands hidden in overalls
that carry grime
back to his bedsit,
sinks in the flat stench
of dead detergent,
the trod of multitudes spewed
from anonymous trains
at badly timed intervals,
the gum, the dust, the sticky corners
of the city,
fuck Richmond station,
one day he'll win big.